Jimi is 4 Months Old!

Jimi was 4 months old July 20th. He is such a smiling, laid back baby. He is sleeping at least 10 hours a night now. He rarely gets fussy and lets just about anyone hold him and loves the ladies at daycare. He worships Kaya, instantly breaking into a gummy grin whenever she comes near. He just started rolling from back to front yesterday, still not quite getting the arm underneath out from under him, but he is getting the hang of it. He is changing so fast, as big and healthy as he is now, it is hard to think that he had such a rough start coming into this world.

He had his 4 month checkup today, weighing in at a whopping 15 lbs, 13 oz! That is 75th percentile for his age. He is 26 1/2 inches long...that is 95th percentile for his age. Other then size and weight she agreed with me it was time to start feeding him baby food and that he is developmentally on track at this point.

Steady as she Goes

I was up 2 lbs this past Tuesday...too much quiche, wine and brownies at Girls night last weekend, followed by Papa Johns and wine the next day. It was a temporary increase though, because I'm right back to my same weigh in of last week.

I'd Give my Eye Teeth to Have Straight Teeth

I never talk about it because I'd rather ignore them and wish they weren't there. But if talking about losing weight helps me do it, maybe talking about getting braces will help me do it also. Those of you that have always had straight teeth, or got braces at an early age can't comprehend how badly I want my horrible overbite and crooked teeth to disappear. I won't even go into the years of riducule I suffered because of them...lets think merely of the health of my teeth. I've never been able to bite into an apple...what a simple task, but my bite does not allow me to do that. And the crowding and uneven bite causes cavities and gum issues, and again I will mention my appearance...I hate to smile!

So for years I did ignore them, then before we were married I looked into getting braces, but with out dental insurance, well, we just couldn't afford it. So now 8 years later, 2 kids later, and now armed with awesome dental insurance, I am pulling my head out of the sand and made myself go to the dentist today. Did I not mention that it had been a few years? I was scared this morning when I went...scared of being told all of my teeth were going to fall out, or hell no you are no longer a canidate for braces...things obviously I knew to be false. After the horrible xrays were taken (I hate those) they found that I had no cavities! I am, however, going back in two weeks to get my bottom grey fillings redone into white ones so I won't have the unsightly gray teeth anymore.

Next comes braces. One more step closer.

Falling Apart

This week, I was coming back from lunch I hurt the hell out of my wrist. I tried to carry 3 heavy office max bags on my wrist, while carrying my water bottle in the same hand trying not to spill it and grab another bag in my right and shut my van trunk all the same time. I did it all, but the rest of my day, my left wrist hurt like hell...that was Wednesday. I still can't put any real weight on it. So between that and my right foot that has been hard to walk on since March, maybe it's time to go to a doctor.

In other news...Jimi is trying hard to turn over. He is getting a little more whiney these days and drooling more...could he be teething this early? Where did my happy little boy go? He is sleeping between 9-12 hours a night and has been for about 2 or 3 weeks.

Kaya officially learned to swim this week. She went to Morgan swim school last summer and was diving underwater and swimming then, but confidence issues and a whole year passing had Kaya using a noodle all over again in the pool this summer. Her daycare takes them to the pool once a week and this week she let go of the noodle and swam across the pool. She then reportedly swam the rest of the afternoon...yay!

I'm down 1.8 lbs this week. I've got about 10 lbs to go to my last years pre pregnancy weight.

Saturday Weigh In

I lost 3.8 lbs this week. I ate a ton of seafood (steamed shrimp, tilapia, crab legs) which are low in calories and fat. And a lot of vegetables. I tried walking a fast 2 miles yesterday morning with Jimi and completed the whole 2 miles, but felt like my legs were going to burn off or cramp up or something. I have along way to go before I consider jogging that distance, any distance for that matter. I am so out of shape.

We didn't do much yesterday, I mostly cleaned up and did laundry. We feasted on Crab legs and fresh corn from a local produce stand and watched I'm Not There, the movie about Bob Dylan's life.

Today I have to go to a meeting for Kaya's cheering that is going to start in a few weeks and finish laundry, vacuuming, you know fun stuff like that. Oh and I promised Kaya I'd take her to the mall.

Haiku to the Black Cat

I am so sorry
Wrong I was to accuse you
monitor is fine

Kitty with a Wire Fetish

We adopted a sweet 15(?) year old black kitty last year. Our family loves this kitty, especially Kaya, and this kitty loves my daughter, husband, and dog. It doesn't like me so much because his arch nemesis, the white kitty, loves me. The white kitty, Maximus Kittenus, aka "white kitty" is a bully with small kitty's complex and beats up on the dog, daughter and this old black kitty. Following me so far?

Yesterday morning I came downstairs as I always do to check my email before anyone is up. I discovered that this kitty completely chewed in half the cable running from our flat screen monitor to our computer. This is not the first time this kitty with a fetish has sliced a cable, 1 month ago it was one of our baby monitor cords, 3 months previous was the mouse to our computer, and about 5 months ago, it was our computer speaker wires. These other items were not extremely costly,we had an extra set of speakers, we threw the baby monitor away, and bought a cheap new mouse. The monitor, however, is expensive and just a year old. I ordered the replacement cable yesterday, and the cable alone was $50. Yeesh.

What does one do with a kitty with a wire fetish? Is there a support group for kitties? A 12-step program? Biofeedback? I know what my first instinct was but I will not divulge it because I am truly an animal lover, and I don't want any
evidence to the contrary.

Needless to say, I will not be able to post again from my home computer until the part comes in. The part should be in sometime next week, until then, I only have access at work.

Losing the Weight

I am trying really hard to make this lifestyle change because I really want to lose 30 or so lbs and be as fit as I was a little over a year ago.

It is hard to stop eating out twice a week, snacking on junk food all the time, and drinking coffee everyday. Coffee, the way I drink it with sugar and a good amount of half and half, is about 2 points. I am willing to use splenda, but refuse to budge on the half and half. So, even though I love it, it's not worth it to me to waste points everyday on that...so I have started only having it on weekends. Alcohol is another thing I don't waste my points on too often while I'm on WW, I just don't agree with wasting my 22 precious points on any beverage. I would love to come home every night and have a glass or 2 of wine, but I just remind myself of the sick feeling I get when I try to put on my old clothes and they are still too small. I had to actually buy almost a whole new wardrobe after having Jimi because I had nothing except maternity things that fit me. I was 185 then, and I still can't wear any of my old clothes now, over 17 lbs later.

I wanted to join a pilates class at a church next to my house, but they only have it on Mondays, and I just found out today that Kaya's cheering practice is going to be on Mondays, so much for that idea. I am really considering starting to work my way up to running. That's a bold sentence huh? Starting to consider working my way up to...well, to clarify, I am really out of shape. I walked a half mile at almost a jog last week, and I was totally winded...but I guess you have to start somewhere.

I would love to set a goal for myself to run the Monument Ave 5k? 10k? which is it? I know that running would fit into my very tight schedule right now and would do wonders for increasing my metabolism and help lose weight. I just know that starting the process is a painful thing, and I just need to get off my butt and do it.

Good Recipe Link

If you don't know already, I'm a bit of a foody. I not only love to eat (hence my new membership at WW), but I also love cooking. I take that back, I love baking. I will cook, but baking is my love. I don't have much time to do either these days, but regardless, I still love looking at cookbooks and online cooking sites and finding great recipes to try out...one of these days...

I found this great website from the Food Stamp Administration. You can search hundreds of recipes and they will not only give you the nutritional info on each recipe(which helps a WW point tracker like me) but it also gives you the cost for the whole recipe and cost per serving. I don't know about you, but the rise in food costs (and everything else) is starting to bug me...I've even started shopping groc. store ads and downloading coupons onto my Kroger card (thanks for the idea, RKKS)

I like Kroger because for every $100 you spend you can get $.10 off each gallon of gas...that helps a little.

Anyway, before I get on a tangent about the price of everything, here is the website.


http://recipefinder.nal.usda.gov/

If you ever run across a good recipe, let me know!

Movin on down

The first time I started ww 2 years ago, I had a 7 lb loss the first week. My loss this 1st week wasn't nearly as good, but I am totally excited that I lost 4.2 lbs! I started the week off eating completly the wrong food but staying within my points. Near the end of the week I started to get better at picking healthy choices that fall in my 22 point per day allowance. I went way over 1 day, but didn't get discouraged, and got right back on track after that. Today I feel less cravings, I'm able to drink all of the water I'm supposed to with out the "floating away" feeling, and hopefully this attitude will hang on with me for a bit so I can lose the weight I want.

I know that my losses will not be this good every week, and there will be gains, but I feel like I am back on track. My 1st goal is to lose 10% by labor day, that gives me about 13 more lbs to lose, then I will set another.

Happy 4th of July

Jimi

Something has been bugging the shit out of me, and maybe if I write it out, I will feel better. Feel free to give your advice.

I have a physical therapist I work with who is very sweet and came to my baby shower and really wanted to work with Jimi after he was born because she said she was being trained in this infant therapy method that is supposed to help in their overall development whether they are behind or not. She asked if she could use Jimi as her "guinea pig" way back while I was still pregnant. Well as you all know the story, he was born prematurely and stayed in the NICU, then his pediatrician said maybe he had a scrotal hernia, then she mentioned possible scoliosis because he like to look up at the light. I was a little sick of hearing there are things wrong with my child, and I should have never had the PT come visit us while I was still at home with him. After one visit she calls me and states that he needs early intervention because he is behind developmentally. WTF!?! Of course he is, "he was premature", I say, and therefore his developmental age is 4-5 weeks behind his actual age...and everything works itself out by the time they are 2 years old.

She wanted to regress him back to putting him in a sling, which is no big deal if he were a newborn starting out, but I never put him in one because I didn't have one, and I'm not going to start now when he is perfectly happy in the crib or pack in play. She wants me to change my thought process that I want him to try and sit up and hold his head up, because she thinks he needs to still be cradled and treated like a newborn. She originally brought this to me as doing her a favor, helping her with her infant study she is doing, but then she is asking me to go through EI and request her as a therapist. I really do like her as a person, and I thought about it for all of 5 minutes when these reasons popped into my brain.

A. If it was supposed to be free, why is she now trying to get paid for it through EI?
B. He was only 11 weeks old at the time, now he is 14 weeks old, give the little boy a chance to catch up for Christ's sake!
C. This is my last baby I'm going to raise and I want to spend this time enjoying his growth and development, not feeding my anxiety that there is something wrong everytime I think about his lack of skills during tummy time!
D. I just don't think he is that far behind.

I have come to the descision that I'm waiting untill he is 6 months old and then kind of taking a look at the whole idea. But it aggravates me because the fact is that she has planted that seed of doubt in my head. That somehow by not doing this now, I will regret it when he is diagnosed with some horrible delay problem (this is my anxiety talking).
She has my anxiety working overtime so that everytime I see one of my friends kids, I think back to what they were doing at Jimi's age, and every baby I see while we are out and about, I compare to my little guy.

But with all of this said, and all of my anxiety aside, I still don't think that I need to start this whole process now. What harm could it to wait until 6 months?

Ok, that is all, just had to vent, because she just called here at work and wanted to know if I had contacted Hanover County yet about services...